President Carlos P. Garcia and the quest for local autonomy
On March 18, 1957, 41 hours after the plane bearing President Ramon Magsaysay crashed against a mountainside in Balamban, Cebu, Carlos Polestico Garcia became the 4th chief executive of this republic.
Before Chief Justice Ricardo Paras of the Supreme Court, in the Council State's Room in Malacañang, the one-time school teacher from Bohol took the oath of office as president of the Republic of the Philippines.
Days (March 26) after he was sworn in as president, Garcia reiterated before the Provincial Governors and City Mayors League that the main objective of his administration was to carry on the policies and the political program of the late President Magsaysay.
The provincial and city executives were guests of the president at a luncheon conference in the Manila Hotel. The members of the league, through their chairman, Mayor Sergio Osmeña Jr. of Cebu City, pledged their support and cooperation to the administration of President Garcia. Thanking the provincial governors and city mayors for their generous support and kind cooperation, Garcia said that he would continue with all the policies of the late president, because it would be a betrayal of his accomplishments and ideals if he would not prosecute his program.
Mayor Serging Osmeña asked President Garcia of his stand on the local autonomy bill of which he replied that he is supporting it. Serging then gave a copy of the final draft of the local autonomy bill to the president saying that Senator Decoroso Rosales (brother of Cardinal Julio Rosales, who became Archbishop of Cebu, who is from Calbayog, Samar) of the Senate Committee on Local Government had already gone over it.
Cebu City Mayor Osmeña told President Garcia that most problems of the provincial and city executives were brought about by the lack of local autonomy.
In the same meeting, President Garcia informed the governors and mayors that they would be given courtesy passes with the Philippine Air Lines and the Manila Railroad Company for use in their official trips to Manila back to their respective provinces and cities. During luncheon conference Mayor Serging committed himself and the people of Cebu to support Garcia's reelection. Garcia thanked Mayor Serging but said that he preferred to remain silent on political matters.
The election was scheduled on November of that year Magsaysay would have run for reelection (they were running mates in the 1953 elections), and in his stead because of his death, his vice president who became president would be running for reelection as standard bearer of the Nacionalista Party. Garcia won in the election held on November 12, 1957, his running mate for vice president, Senator Jose Laurel Jr., however, lost to Pampanga Congressman, Diosdado Macapagal of the Liberal Party.
Magsaysay was close to Cebu. It was he who gave funds for the creation of a relocation area for the fire victims of Cebu City, the site eventually became a barrio, now known as Barrio Luz, named after his wife Luz Banzon.
On May 30, 1960, at the Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City, President Garcia said that in the 1959 Congress, he urged the granting of more autonomy to local governments, especially to the barrio councils. It was then that Republic Act No. 2370 otherwise known as the Barrio Charter. The law gave limited powers of taxation to enable them to finance and carry out local development undertakings.
The quest for local autonomy took decades to be implemented, on October 10, 1991, the House of Representatives of the 8th Congress, with its Principal Sponsor, Congressman Antonio V. Cuenco and on the Senate, Senator Aquilino Pimentel enacted to what is now known as the Local Government Code of 1991.
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